


Sanctuary

by Embleer_Frith0323



Series: Havens [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Grayson (Comics)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Hallucinations, M/M, Male Slash, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, some language, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 16:02:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15537840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Embleer_Frith0323/pseuds/Embleer_Frith0323
Summary: Post-Grayson.When a subterranean encounter plunges Tiger into a waking nightmare, Dick reminds him of what is real.





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks daisymagick and libraryman85 for being your wonderful selves and beta reading... and for all the laughs and fun. :D
> 
> Happy reading!

Before this half-cocked mission, if someone had told Tiger that he would end up like _this_ — prone, his buttocks driven into the silty stones beneath him, ridden by none other than idiot Grayson — he’d have delivered the messenger a perfunctory backhand swat. Maybe a scornful laugh, if he were so inclined. And generally, with a message so _absurd,_ he wouldn’t be. 

Yet there he was, his palms sliding up his partner’s — _lover’s? —_ lean thighs, moving to grasp his hips, governing his rhythm. Grayson obligingly rocked faster, smiling down at Tiger before bracing his hands on Tiger’s knees, arching his back and stretching his muscled abdomen. Tiger’s head fell back, a sigh evolving into a moan, his hips lifting with his voice, driving deeper into his lover (yes, that was how he would think of Grayson, even if it was only for this one bizarre blip in this equally bizarre backdrop.) Dick’s quads tightened around his waist, a soft cry escaping his lips. 

How in the hell did they end up here, Tiger wondered muzzily, rising and falling, keeping time with Grayson, now moaning unabashed — how did they end up like _this?_

He looked up at Dick Grayson — once Robin, then Nightwing, then Agent 37, then back to Nightwing, and for now, something like Agent 37 again (at least until this job came to a close.) Tiger held the gaze that was still so blue in their dim surroundings, somehow entranced in knowing that he saw — _truly_ saw — _Richard Grayson._ The _man_ behind the many masks this greatest showman wore. All facades were banished. All barriers were down. This was not a stage that he took, not a performance he put on. This was Richard’s _essence_ now. 

And Richard — _Richard_ was how they ended up like this, Tiger thought in a preposterous sort of _ah-ha!_ moment, his heart leaping into his throat and cutting off his breath when Grayson sat — the motion _hard,_ abrupt — with a loud clap of skin against skin, pausing, tightening maddeningly around Tiger’s length. Tiger’s chest strangulated and shook, his breath stalled there, a flurry of stars scattering across his vision and guts cinching up. He dug his grip harder into Grayson’s hips, knowing he’d leave marks, too overwrought to stop himself, dangerously near his earthshaking end. 

Richard. _Idiot_ Richard. Tiger was not one to lower the walls he constructed around himself, extend his personal bubble (or his “own personal DMZ,” as Grayson called it), place power in another’s hands. But while he might have been giving cock — “pitching,” as the Americans called it — he was _not_ the one calling the shots. 

Grayson was. _Richard_ was. 

And _Richard_ was how they wound up making love inside this dank, dripping cave, with only the light of a discarded electronic torch to illuminate the darkness in the first place. _Richard_ was how Tiger had not fallen irretrievably into the lurid hallucination that would have spelled his death. 

Yes. No-Longer-37 shucking all illusions and taking the reins was how they ended up _here,_ like _this,_ in this underbelly of a labyrinthine cave system, which housed their original quarry — an enigmatic substance that Tiger had worked over the last weeks to unravel the mystery of. 

This damn _cave._ Tiger was never a fan of dark, confined spaces. Too many hours spent forcibly locked in a closet alone (how, he wondered more than once, would a _closet_ protect him from a missile?), praying for explosives to miss his house, for the Russians first to leave, later the Taliban. He would kneel cramped among his clothes and shoes, hearing his parents as they scrambled about the house, preparing for God knew what. Praying Namaz within his tiny, stifling closet — suffocating in the summer, frigid in the winter — and waiting for each word to be his last engendered a surpassing hatred for small spaces that would never leave him. The open streets of Kandahar, earning his name and fearsome reputation — that was where he overcame his childhood fears, growing into the man he became. In the breathing _air._ Not in that godforsaken cupboard. 

Tiger stuffed his displeasure over where the task at hand would take him. He had a murdered agent on his hands, and he needed answers — the end. Knowing that caving was not a solo job, he sought the one person he _knew_ he could count on for assistance in such an intricate undertaking — Grayson. His recruits weren’t ready. 

Thankfully, his old partner was “not _too_ up to his eyeballs in Nightwinging to come to Tony’s aid, he was in like flint!” And with that, it was straight out of Grayson’s (messy) apartment, onto the helicopter, and down the rabbit hole they went. 

Tiger’s years of conditioning and training took over, tolerably dispelling his dislike for close spaces, and he led the way into the mouth of the cave. He took a moment to say a prayer of thanks that working with Nightwing meant _reams_ of handy Battoys that would get things done a lot more efficiently. 

“So what in painful specific are we after down here again?” Dick queried as they reached the first level of the cave system, checking his gear. “Flesh-eating troglodytes, buncha hot female spelunkers that succumbed to madness and started killing each other, Neil Marshall, himself, maybe?” 

“I told you already, you idiot, if you’d _listen_ once in a while — it’s a substance that’s supposedly used to cause fatal heart attacks. And because the natural order of things loves convenience, this cave system is the only place it can be found. Or so the informant told me, anyway.” 

“Sir, yes, sir, I know, sir — I just wondered if you had any more specifics on it, sir,” Dick said. His expression softened, levity gone in a blink. “Sorry, by the way. About your agent.” 

Tiger shook his head. A pang fell in his gut — regret, sorrow. Responsibility, too. His lips thinned and his jaw clenched as he shelved his emotions regarding the late Agent 39. For now, there was work to be done. 

“Well,” he said. “Nothing we can do for him now, except get to the bottom of it. The… _very_ bottom of it.” 

“Do you know what _kind_ of substance from the earth’s sphincter might cause massive coronaries?” asked Dick. “Like… is it animal, vegetable, mineral? Does it involve naked blind dudes with bat ears and fangs? And yes — I am going to play Twenty Questions until we figure this thing out.” 

“I’ll gladly play Twenty Forms of Grievous Bodily Harm if you even think about it,” Tiger said. He sobered and sighed. “To be honest, Grayson, I’m unsure as to what kind of substance it is — the informant could only tell me that he knew its location through black market vendors’ gossip. The last person to have actually _acquired_ it and left a paper trail died before I could catch up to him.” 

“Please tell me the guy didn’t bite it from a heart attack.” 

“Actually,” Tiger said, “he did.” 

“Well, _that’s_ comforting,” Dick said. “Hoping you’ve got a haz-mat suit in your fanny pack, there, Tony, because we both might not fit in mine if we end up needing it.” 

“Please don’t call me that,” Tiger groused, casting his eyes to the ceiling of the tunnel, adjusting the light attached to his pack. “And yes, I have haz-mat tools if we need them, no need to get cozy in the same suit. Now — let’s just get this part of things over with. The sooner we’re done here, the sooner we’ve found justice for Agent 39.” 

“Whaaa… there’s an Agent 39!” Grayson celebrated jubilantly. “Which means there’s also an Agent 38! See? Not _everyone_ else’s pencils worked, Tig —” 

Tiger groaned. 

The journey into the systems was a protracted endeavor, the descent alone projected to take the better part of half a day. A few more taps with a rock hammer and they’d wind up at the earth’s core, Tiger figured wryly, half-listening to the familiar sound of Grayson’s amiable chatter as they continued in their expedition, the hours passing as they worked up a good sweat under the rigors of caving. 

They came eventually into a winding passage that might have been carved by rushing water at one time, its end opening up on the gaping mouth of an enormous darkness — a black maw that, according to the ping on Tiger’s digital scanner, was their end goal. He had based the location off the report his informant gave him, and considering this same man had never led him astray before, Tiger assumed the info was solid. 

There went nothing. He shined his light down, its gleam a green orb on the still water below. Not far down, and according to the scan, a safe enough jump. 

“There’s our quarry,” Tiger stated, securing his tablet after analyzing the chamber beneath. “At the bottom of the water sink. There’s enough space around the pool that we’ll be able to climb out and rig our gear for ascent when we’re through. Get ready to jump, Grayson.” 

“I was _born_ ready, you know that,” Dick said cheerfully, stretching his arms and popping his neck. He turned his accustomed waggish grin to him. “We gonna hold hands when we jump?” 

“In your dreams, maybe,” Tiger said, removing his turban and situating his packs in preparation for the swim. “Certainly not in mine.” 

“Aw, breaking my heart, Senpai,” Grayson told him, and gestured. “After you?” 

“Ladies first.” 

Grayson snickered, situated a pair of night vision water goggles and a rebreather over his face, and dove readily into the darkness. Tiger rolled his eyes — of course that show-off would dive — and positioned his own goggles and rebreather. He followed, mindful of Dick’s positioning. 

The customary breath of a high leap caressed Tiger’s face, then the shock of the water below came shortly after. He swam down, Grayson a little ways ahead and to his left, gracefully stroking a downward path through the depths. Beneath them, reaching across the floor of the water sink, a sprawling growth of plant life, illuminated a pale, silvery green through the goggles, came into view — a tangled network of webbed vines and thick leaves. 

What the _hell_ kind of plant grew down here? Tiger wondered. This _had_ to be what they sought, going on the pure strangeness of it alone. He sped up in his descent, pulling quickly through the water. 

One moment, Tiger swam toward their target. 

Then in the next, there was a sudden, engulfing blackness. 

Then a sense of _rushing,_ free-falling, floating — 

Tiger’s eyes burst open. He stifled the nauseating disorientation that threatened to engulf him in an overturning tide, and took rapid stock of his surroundings. Somehow, he was no longer in a water sink miles below the surface of the earth with Grayson — he was alone in his closet in his childhood house near Kandahar, the tiny compartment even more cramped around his adult body. How on earth could he have gotten _here,_ of all places? And where was Dick? 

He leapt to his feet, grabbing hold of the door handle with one hand, depressing the comm button on his earpiece with the other to connect with his partner. He paused a moment when he recognized the clothes that hung around him. They were his own shirts and trousers once — small in size, not seen in years, long since given away. When he was a child. Their familiarity was astronomically _wrong,_ as wrong as finding himself here in the first place. 

How was this _possible —_ was he dreaming — hallucinating? 

The foundations of the house shook raucously, enormous claps like thunder deafening his ears — mortars detonating nearby. He was thrown into the wall, its flat, solid surface real enough against his back to knock the wind out of him. His footing gave out, unable to find purchase on the quaking ground. Well, if this was a hallucination, it had certainly established enough traction in reality to kill him. It dawned on him in a wild sort of epiphany that perhaps the plants he swam toward — what he suspected were the vague, coronary-inducing substance he sought — worked in this way. He had heard of such things. 

Or maybe the plant below wasn’t hallucinogenic — or even what he sought at all. Perhaps some enemy somewhere opened a wormhole in that cave, crafted a rift in time or created a dimensional jump — and had set Tiger up from the beginning. 

If so — Tiger had dragged Grayson right into it. 

The possibilities were endless. Tiger had seen enough in his day to be anything but a skeptic. 

It hit him with the savagery of adult awareness just _how_ little good this rickety closet would do him, _how_ lacking a protection it provided — never mind if this was some illusory world. He was where he was, and he needed to find cover. _Real_ cover. To hell with how he got here. 

And he needed to find his partner. 

With no parents to bar him inside, he hurled the door open, and in a flash of relief, found himself facing Grayson, tangible and in motion and very much real, lending credence to the dimensional skip theory. Dick stood across the room in the open doorway, knees bent, arms braced against the frame. His gaze fell on Tiger, and he extended an arm to him, his mouth opening to speak. 

Grayson didn’t make it to his second word. His voice dissolved beneath an overpowering boom and flash, and the world upended itself in a sickening, neck-breaking circle. 

Dust and smoke whirled around Tiger, clotting in his throat and lungs, plugging his nostrils. He coughed and choked, a spear of agony lancing up his chest and side. One arm failed to work, one leg the same. He blinked, swiping at his streaming eyes with one hand. He found himself on the street outside, a good ways off from where the house was. _Was._ Used to be. It was gone now. A mortar had hit it — and them. 

Grayson — where was Grayson — 

He turned to his front, pulling himself laboriously from where he was half-buried beneath a mound of shrapnel, then crawled across the chewed up ground with his operative arm. He moved doggedly through the pain in his body and the never-ending volley overhead toward what looked like it might be the front of Dick’s fitted thermal shirt. He couldn’t be _sure_ that was what he saw — but it was a square of lighter color that stood out like a beacon through the mottled gray cloud that swallowed his sight, at least. He spat debris from his mouth, spraying blood over his chin. Coming upon the pale square, he recognized the design — it was his partner’s shirt. He reached over to shake Grayson. 

“Grayson —” he choked, “have to move —” 

His vision sluggishly continued to clear, and he froze when he took in the growing sight of the horrifying lack of one arm, the gruesome stump of the other, the aberrance of a missing lower body, the reaching blood and strewn viscera. The ground went out from beneath Tiger, his half-sensed limbs shivering into a tingling zero gravity as he then beheld his partner’s lifeless gaze — blue eyes empty, mouth slack, no comprehension in his blood-soaked face. 

“ _Na…”_ Tiger breathed. 

This couldn’t be, _couldn’t_ be right — 

But Tiger knew, looking on Grayson, that his partner was dead. 

In spite of that atomizing knowledge, even as he gazed on Grayson’s lifeless, mangled body, some stupid, stubborn part of him expected his partner to rise up with his well-known smile and reveal that this was all an incredibly elaborate practical joke, and oh, come on, Tony, wasn’t it grrrrrreat? 

But Grayson _didn’t_ move, lying preternaturally still, the shell of his dismembered torso resting heavy atop the ground. Mortars rattled the earth, ringing in Tiger’s ears, jarring his teeth and injuries. 

For one conditioned moment, Tiger thought to thrust his rising emotions aside — to detach from this awful situation and do what needed to be done. He could grieve later. For now, he still had a job to do. Survive. Escape. Disentangle the rebus of what happened. And perhaps he would, in the process, find that the hallucination theory was the right one. 

But he could _feel_ the skin of Grayson’s shorn arm under his palm, already cold, like slick clay beneath his fingers. He could smell the blood, the smoke, the ash, the acrid stink of ozone. The earth quaked, the sounds shattered his eardrums. He could feel the pain in his own body — busted arm, broken leg, enough lacerations he might very well bleed out on the street. 

So in the next moment, he crawled the remaining way to his partner’s body, and stretched out across him, sheltering Dick from the falling missiles — all he _could_ do for Grayson for the time being. 

_No man gets left behind —_ the motto of all brothers-in-arms. Tiger grasped at a handful of Grayson’s hair, oily with blood. 

He wouldn’t leave him like this. 

It was then the tears came, unexpected and hot and fast from Tiger’s burning eyes, pouring from the well of despair that surged upward on a tide of self-condemnation. 

Tiger was hardly a stranger to loss, to death, to violence. He had borne the losses of so many comrades and loved ones that he had stopped keeping count. Agent 39 was one of an innumerable host before him. He regretted his loss — how could Tiger _not_ feel sorrow for him? But his heart had hardened in his chest — protecting itself within a calcified shell, not permitting for things like _grief._

But… Grayson. Idiot Grayson — his partner. His ally. His _friend._

The sight of his friend — dead, mangled, silenced — _shattered_ the shell around Tiger’s heart. 

Dick had made his way through that same shell a long time ago. And he had done it effortlessly, before Tiger even realized it — with his passion, his energy. Tiger had thought Grayson a vapid, wide-eyed fool, at first — an entitled rich boy who had coasted on the intelligence of others while banking on his looks and physical acumen to get ahead. But Tiger learned eventually that he had _severely_ misjudged Grayson. This was not some dewy-eyed boy with too many ideals, too much money and too little actual brain cells. No. This was a _capable_ man. This was an _honorable_ man. This was a _good_ man. This was a man that Tiger trusted — and trusted implicitly. And his faith was not something he just forked over to others. 

Dick, Tiger knew, shared that trust. And he had failed Grayson’s faith. Failed his partner, period. He had allowed Dick — the one person he realized now he couldn’t bear to lose — to die. 

Even separated, their work no longer connected, Tiger at least knew that Dick was only as far away as a phone call, a message, a knock. And now… 

_Tiger —_

A screaming whistle crescendoed in Tiger’s ears — an incendiary coming straight for them. 

_Tiger, wake up —_

He closed his eyes. He prepared himself. 

_TIGER —_

A powerful, startling strike to the face wrested Tiger from the awful panorama of destruction and death. His eyes opened, and with a jolt looked Grayson — alive and breathing, gazing at him with alarm and concern — straight in the face. Bewildered, Tiger thrashed, overcome by a fluctuating salvo of pulsing, confused images. One second he was hunched over Grayson’s mutilated body, taking explosives on the demolished street outside his old home. The next, he was in the damp, chilly confines of the cave, lying on his back on a wet stone floor by the water sink he had just leapt into. With Grayson, who was very much _alive,_ hovering over him. 

“Tiger — Tiger, take it easy — it’s all right —“ Grayson said, catching Tiger’s face in both his hands. “It’s _all_ _right_. You’re okay — everything’s okay. Whatever you saw, it was just a dream — just a hallucination brought on by those plants. _It’s all right.”_

Tiger thrust Grayson’s hands away, and hastened backward, still pinballing between this place and the other, unable to get a foothold in either. He spoke, his voice thin and papery and far-off sounding. 

“The _hell_ everything’s all right — _nothing's_ all right — the last thing I saw was you _dead_ in front of me, Grayson! How am I supposed to know if _that_ wasn’t real and _this_ isn't the hallucination?” he demanded, the words echoing weirdly, all of them tinny and muddled. “How am I supposed to be able to tell? For all I know, you’re a spy, a plant —” His voice rose to a snarl, “ _and_ _you_ _are_ _not_ _Grayson_ _at_ _all_.” 

A flash. A whistle. Pain. Grayson’s body. 

The cave. Grayson’s face. No injuries to either of them. 

What was happening? 

Tiger gripped his head with one hand. “You — Grayson _died_ — I saw it — _I saw it_ _so_ _clearly_ —” 

Dick shook his head, cautiously angling closer to Tiger, extending his hand toward him. Tiger lifted an arm in a defensive position, shifting his body to fight. 

“No,” Grayson murmured softly. “It was the algae, Tiger. You were hallucinating. That’s all.” 

“I might believe that if Grayson’s dead body hadn’t felt more real than _this_ godforsaken place,” Tiger growled, overwhelmed with suspicion and theory, no longer trusting his eyes. “And I’ll burn in eternal torment before I believe for a second you’re Richard Grayson — that this entire thing wasn’t a setup from the very beginning.” He lifted up. “And it was, wasn’t it? It _was_ —” 

When the impostor (and it _had_ to be a pretender) reached for him, Tiger ducked his hand, and sprang into a squat. He assumed an offensive position, prepared now to throw down, to unravel this mess, to find some semblance of justice or even merely of _fairness_ for his partner, for Agent 39. 

But before he could act further, he was all at once back on the pitted, war-torn street in Kandahar. Grayson was still lifeless beneath him. His tears still flowed. His heart still faltered and broke. The unthinkable weight of that loss still permeated the stifling, dust-thickened air. His body was still wracked with agony. 

Then — 

Then there was a grip to either side of his face. And he heard Grayson’s voice, drawing him back into the cave. 

“Tiger — _Tiger,”_ Grayson said fervently, grasping his face in hands that were damp and clammy, buzzing with a slight tremor. “Tiger — it’s me. _It’s me._ ” Grayson gave Tiger a shake. “It’s me —” 

“It can’t be,” Tiger said, jerking his head away from Dick’s hands. He balled his fists, lifted them. “I saw it. _I saw it —”_

“I know you did, Tig,” Grayson said, his tone infuriatingly mollifying, even as his own posture was tense, mirroring Tiger’s. “It was the algae. I had hallucinations, too.” 

“I’m sure,” Tiger scoffed. “And how did _you_ manage to pull yourself out of it, you idiot? Pull _me_ out of it?” 

“I’ve had some experience with it before,” Dick explained, taking a measured step toward Tiger. “I recognized it just before it took us over — just didn’t recognize it fast enough.” He grimaced. “I knew it was a hallucination, even if it didn’t _feel_ like one. But I wouldn’t be a Batkid if I couldn’t pull myself out of even the worst drug- or algae-induced head trips —” 

“And I wouldn’t be who I am if _I_ couldn’t,” Tiger returned stubbornly. “I _saw_ you, Grayson. I saw you die. I found your body. I _heard_ the explosions, felt the pain of my own injuries, smelled the smoke — _I felt all of it._ It was _real —”_

“I don’t doubt it — that’s how the algae works,” Grayson told him, reaching Tiger. He reached for him. Tiger blocked his hand. “But don’t forget I beat the Hypnos — I beat _Daedalus,_ Tiger — and I promise you. I beat the algae — and what you saw, it was just a dream. A dream meant to _kill_ you, granted, but still just a dream. Okay? I’m not dead. I’m right here.” 

Tiger shook his head, his heart hammering madly, a piston whipping against his ribs. An overwhelming surge of grief rose when a flash image of his partner’s riven corpse sparkled in his sight. His eyes burned, threatening tears, foretelling a terrible, rare dissolution. He quelled the uptide, gritting his teeth, sawing his lower lip between them. He _gripped_ his control over himself with white, straining knuckles — and focused on the man in front of him. 

Alia had said he was too kind. That he had forgotten his nature. But damn it, he wasn’t _weak._ He wouldn’t cave under his grief — and he wouldn’t cave under his relief, either. 

“It didn’t feel like a dream,” he snarled, gesturing stiffly with one taut, furious arm. “ _This_ does. _This_ feels unreal. The other — the other place didn’t. So how am I to know if _you_ aren’t, in fact, the hallucination, the bad dream _meant to kill me?_ Because —” His veneer cracked in spite of himself, fissures ripping all across it, loosing everything within. His eyes welled. His voice rose to a shout. A shake started in his middle, visibly pulsing through him. _"Because I saw Grayson — my partner — die —_ he _died_ back there — and I couldn’t save him —” 

Then there was silence, the only sound that of Tiger’s ragged breathing. Grayson just stared at him in absolute quiet. 

Then what Grayson did next, Tiger could never have anticipated. 

He yanked Tiger to him with one quick, efficient motion, and pressed his lips to his — hard and insistent, his own filmed with damp from the water sink beside them. 

He _kissed_ him. 

Tiger jerked away from Grayson, his chest leaping with his startled breath, his muscles unknotting themselves despite his shock. He stared into Grayson’s eyes, fervent, pleading, and so, so _blue_ in the light of the discarded torch. Again, his partner took his face in his hands, his thumbs gentle on his cheekbones, his fingers resting on his hair. 

“It’s me, Tiger,” Grayson whispered. “Okay? It’s me.” 

Tiger gazed at Grayson, at _Richard._

And all of the emotions caught up to him at once, overtaking him like a stampede. Never mind what had just happened. _This —_ this was what was real. 

It _was_ him, wasn’t it — 

Tiger couldn’t really say why he did what he did next. 

But whatever the reason, he _hurled_ himself at Grayson. He rammed his mouth against his, kissing him fiercely, wildly — banishing the upsurge of corrosive anguish, honing his senses instead on Grayson’s mouth as it parted, _feeling_ his lips as they slid against his, his tongue as it flicked against his labrum. Tiger couldn’t worry for the moment about how it had come to this unexpected place — only that _this_ was the only thing that could dissolve the terrible flash images, the only tether to reality that he could grasp. 

“Stay with me, Tiger —” Dick breathed. 

Tiger silenced him when he tore Grayson’s shirt from his torso, then drove Dick to his back. He pushed his tongue into his mouth, a shiver wracking his spine when his partner sucked eagerly at the muscle. Would it go farther than this? Tiger wondered if he’d be horrified at himself over what was happening later, when the dust had time to settle and his head cleared. But he found it felt somehow innately _right,_ like the fulfillment of a long-buried wish he hadn’t remembered making — and anyway, it was far, far better than the pain of the street, with Grayson dead in front of him. 

So Tiger let go of the details. He didn’t worry about what this meant in the long term. He didn’t concern himself over how this would affect them both, the questions it raised about himself that he had never asked or considered, or what had transpired to bring them there. He didn’t think about the role his oft-suppressed emotions played in it. He just kissed Grayson with every ounce of life and fire he had in him. He channeled the overload of despair and grief into kissing him, assimilated reality by _feeling_ his partner’s body as Dick responded to his touch. 

Tiger ground his pelvis down, feeling the bulge in Grayson’s pants, twitching against his own erection. It sparked a light in his middle that bore a powerful need — all at once, Tiger _had_ to touch his partner. Feel him. See him. He wanted nothing between them. He wanted _skin._

He rose to his knees, allowing Grayson to pull his shirt over his head, then tug at the fastening of his pants. He grunted when Dick freed his cock, his weight springing readily from the fetters of his clothing as Grayson peeled the material away from his hips. With quick-moving fingers, Tiger returned the favor, tossing Dick’s clothes aside, baring him completely. 

He paused a moment, taking in the sight of Grayson prone and naked, _not_ dead, but vibrant and alive, radiating warmth and vitality as his bare chest lifted and fell with his swift, fevered breathing. He absorbed the image of his partner, committing it to memory, wanting to _keep_ this moment — wanting to erase the terrible image of Grayson mutilated and lifeless. He took in the blue of Dick’s eyes, the chiseled abdominals, the hard, reaching length of his weeping cock, the sleek muscle under smooth skin _(so much skin.)_ Scars marred its surface, mapping his body with the landmarks of his life as Robin, Nightwing. Newer marks were scattered among the older — more recent legacies of Agent 37. Tiger had plenty of his own. 

Grayson reached up, tracing his fingers over Tiger’s chest, moving across his torso, exploring some of those scars and marks, his expression equal parts melancholy and inquisitive as his touch fell on them. Finally, he ran his fingers down the linea of Tiger’s abdomen, through the coarse growth of hair that trailed below his navel, at last wrapping strong fingers around the base of his erection. Tiger’s breath burst from his lungs and his spine arched. The warmth in his gut went to a burn. 

Grayson rose up, meeting Tiger’s lips, flush with him, chests pressed to one another’s. He worked him with one hand, curling the other around the back of Tiger’s neck, his mouth parting as he kissed him. He opened his hand, inviting his own cock into his grip, grasping them together, milking both. He jerked hard now with his grip between their bodies, pulling aggressively. Tiger bit down on his lower lip, groaning when Grayson tightened his grip around them in response. 

It kept on until Dick halted suddenly, drawing back to meet Tiger’s febrile gaze for a long series of wordless moments. He reached for his discarded utility belt with one hand and sifted through a pack until he turned up a small bottle of lubricant. Tiger _felt_ his brows as they made friends with his hairline — what in the hell did Dick carry a damn bottle of _personal_ _lubricant_ around for? Not that such a ludicrous thing should have surprised him from Grayson — 

But before he could speak, Dick had released himself and lubed up Tiger’s cock with swift motions, the touch — and unspoken implication — of his slick fingers more than enough to send a lightning bolt through Tiger’s core. He laid his hands on Grayson’s waist, pressing his hold into the skin there, attempting to turn him over. 

Dick, however, had other ideas. He hooked one leg around Tiger’s thighs, efficiently toppling him to his back. He knelt over him, bracketing Tiger’s hips. Dick laid his hands on Tiger’s chest when he attempted to rise. Grayson shook his head, then leaned down, and kissed him. 

“You need to keep your eyes on me, Tiger,” he whispered to him. “You’re still only half-here — you’re not out of the woods yet — you need to _stay_ with me — look at me —” 

It wasn’t what Tiger expected. And to do this with Grayson looking him in the face, _seeing_ him wrecked and shellacked as he fought to surmount his confused emotions and cognize his disordered reality — he wasn’t convinced he was comfortable with the idea. 

On Dick’s face was a heated expression, but one that was warm and kind and perceptive, too — and Tiger knew Grayson was right. If he closed his eyes, lost his focus even for a moment — he might slip back under. He sensed it, the terrible illusion — still waiting for him, close at hand, barely held at bay. 

“Keep your eyes on me, partner,” Grayson murmured, laying a hand on his face, his callused palm damp against his cheek. “ _Stay_ with me.” 

Tiger acquiesced, his muscles vibrating and drawn taut, his cock straining and leaking against his abdominals. Grayson worked himself open with his lubed fingers, then grasped Tiger’s erection, bearing down on him with a sigh. He took him deep, eliciting a low, hoarse groan from Tiger’s throat. The sound broke off into a gasp, Tiger’s breath coming shallow and quick as Grayson rode him, softly and slowly at first, then mounting in ardor, his back flexing and arching as he rose and fell. 

And _here_ they were, Tiger thought, the thoughts coming dim and half-formed now, befuddled in a fog of hot ecstasy. Grayson rocked with increasing purpose, his voice coming in nonsensical bursts, little outpours of wordless pleasure — _ah, ah, ahs_ that drove Tiger insane. His hands gripped Tiger’s knees. Tiger vocalized with him, equally untrammeled, his voice catching as the clinch in his belly drew into an incinerating fist. He finally had the presence of mind to take hold of Grayson’s cock, stroking in time with his lover’s tempo, his motions sharp and rough. The feeling of an erection not his own in his hand was a little foreign, but Dick didn’t seem to mind — his spine bowed and he moaned louder still, his rhythm quickening. 

Tiger’s gut knotted up, lancing into a dense, blazing stone, heating and tightening until it burst like a shattered levee. The orgasm thrust the breath from his chest in a loud, echoing cry, blinding his sight beneath an exploding display of fireworks. He lifted up and buried himself deep in Grayson, pulsing, leaping, pouring into him as his partner wrung him dry with urgent shifts of his hips. A couple of harsh, clumsy tugs later, and Grayson cried out, finishing all over Tiger’s chest in warm, sticky streaks. 

Dick sagged down over Tiger, coming to rest atop him, heedless of his own cum on Tiger’s skin, his weight warming him in the chill air. The only sound, apart from the occasional, echoing _plink_ of dripping water, was that of their breathing, ragged and fast, eventually quieting into a gentle, even rhythm. They didn’t pull away from one another. 

His head swimming, stars still speckling his vision, Tiger reached up to lay cumbersome, slow-moving hands on Grayson’s waist. Then, as though someone had turned a knob, tears built swiftly atop his lashlines. 

This — what just unexpectedly happened — it was real. 

_This_ was real. Grayson was. He was. This cave was. 

The street vanished. 

Its rescinding ripped something open inside Tiger, a turgid, distending sore that had festered and burgeoned for years. It had swelled in him for so long that he had become numb to its existence, accustomed to the discomfort it brought — so much so that he no longer even noticed it was there. Lying here, on his back, with Grayson’s warmth tucked soothingly around him, its putrid, noxious contents drained at once like an undammed weir — and before Tiger could stop it from happening, he was weeping like an utter fool. He held his breath, stemming the flow, but it felt _so good_ to just let go after so many years of resistance and burial — every bit as good as _Grayson_ had. 

So he stopped resisting... and _let go._ Wherever his dignity was, it was long gone, anyway. He’d left it behind somewhere on the surface. 

He heard Grayson tell him it was okay, that it was all right, that he was safe, that the nightmares were over — 

“That’s not it, you idiot,” he choked out, shaking his head. “That’s not it.” 

Dick lifted a little, and ran a hand over Tiger’s hair, leaving his hand on his face. “Then what is it?” 

Tiger just shook his head again. 

“Can’t,” he said in a wet grunt. 

There was a pause as Dick frowned at him. 

“You know,” Dick said, “it might help to talk. That algae, Tiger… it’s a psychedelic aquatic plant from Rann that was harvested by Apokoliptians to create deadly illusions. It literally crafts a hallucination of death so _real_ it tricks the brain into believing it. Hence, the heart attacks. It had to have gotten into our rebreathers somehow.” He grimaced. “I’m a little embarrassed I didn’t think of it going in, actually — but last I checked, the stuff hasn’t been seen growing on earth since… well, _ever._ Even worse, it goes after your fear receptors — literally plays on your worst nightmares. If I had to guess… whatever else you saw, it’s what you’re carrying right now. And if I had to take another guess, you’ve been carrying whatever it is by yourself for a long time — maybe it’s time to share the load a little.” 

Oh, hell. Well, that certainly explained a lot. Tiger took a breath, calming himself. 

“Share the load a little — when did _you_ become so wise?” Tiger snorted, dragging a hand over his eyes. 

Dick smiled — that easy, familiar smile, that always came so naturally to him. Even at rest, his face was sanguine, with his humming energy and sparkling eyes. Now, the expression was warm, soft — comforting. 

“Can’t say if I’m _wise,”_ he said, “but I will say I’ve been through the wringer myself a time or ten. And trust me, Tiger. It does _not_ help to keep what you’re feeling to yourself. It’ll break you down _every time —_ and you won’t even realize it until it’s too late.” He darkened. “I mean… just look at Batman. He’s a _perfect_ example of what happens when you bottle everything up and just kind of let it fester.” 

Tiger was quiet a moment, looking up at his partner, knowing that this was one of those things he’d hidden as Agent 37, the unexpected _canniness_ and high emotional IQ that seemed garishly out of place on so blithe a persona. 

Well. Again. It was too late for his obliterated dignity. And he supposed he was feeling a little vulnerable after the “algae-induced head trip” he’d just been through. Tiger again wiped his eyes, inhaled… and out everything came. 

He told Grayson about his childhood in Kandahar, the peaceable life with his parents that was so frequently overturned by violence, the evenings when they would be seated at the dinner table and feel the shaking of the ground, hear the thunder of the explosives. They would hold hands, bow their heads, and pray. He detailed the hours spent locked in his closet while endless volleys of bombs fell — that place of so many nightmares that would plague his sleep in the years that followed. 

Then, for the first time, he told Grayson about his mother — her unexpected death from a _stroke,_ of all things. He dwelled on how it changed his father, once warm and loving, into a hollow, silent husk of a man, as remote and cold as a far-off mountain. How it had changed Tiger himself. He went on to talk more about his Baba, who now lived in an assisted living facility in the States and suffered crippling dementia. He even outpoured to Grayson about Alia — the woman that had hurt and betrayed them both, the woman that Tiger believed still held his heart. 

Dick just listened. He didn’t speak, didn’t interject. He only gave an indication every so often that he followed, that he heard Tiger — and he _held_ him, stayed close to him, didn’t pull away. Not once. 

Tiger had grown unaccustomed to this — opening his heart, laying bare his soul. But he found, when the silence fell in the wake of his words, that he wasn’t embarrassed by this feeling of exposure. He didn’t regret his candidacy with Grayson. 

Dick had firmly established himself as a friend. A _true_ one. Unfaltering, unconditional. It was a strange thing, Tiger felt, this notion of a friend that he trusted, that he would gladly die for, who would just as gladly do the same for him — but it wasn’t a _bad_ thing, much as he’d tried to convince himself more than once. 

No. It wasn’t bad. 

He wondered what Grayson was to him now — if they would return to the surface with their quarry and just go back to how things were, leaving all that happened between them buried here inside this cave in a kind of tomb. He wondered if they would _talk_ about it, discuss it as though it were a part of the mission, a sort of “incident at work.” And… he wondered if more would come after, if this wasn’t to be an isolated occurrence. And _that…_ that was a whole different beast. Tiger had a _lot_ to dwell on over the next days. Weeks. Months. Years, possibly. 

Grayson smiled at Tiger, his hand on his face gentle. He thumbed softly at his cheek. 

“There. Now doesn’t that feel better?” he asked, his tone regaining its usual levity, his eyes aglow with their buoyant sparkle. 

Tiger half-smiled in return. “I suppose so, yes. Granted, taking a page out of _your_ book is bound to — life’s more painless for the brainless, as the song says.” 

Dick laughed. “And he’s back.” 

Tiger chuckled, then sobered. “In seriousness, Grayson —” He paused, eyeing his partner, then reached up, and laid his own hand on Dick’s face. “Thank you.” 

An odd twinge lit in his chest. Acknowledging what had occurred — it rendered it _real,_ beyond assimilating a physical reality. 

Grayson just smiled again, and surprised Tiger when he leaned forward, and closed his lips over his. 

“Any time, partner,” he murmured, and angled down to rest his head on Tiger’s chest. 

Well. The two of them, what _this_ all meant in the long term — they were thoughts for later. For now, they had found what Tiger sought, and there was plenty of work yet to do. Finding the buyer of this substance, for one — and why they targeted 39, for another. Who planted this subterranean aquatic garden in the first place. 

Tiger moved, and Grayson made a noise of protest, cuddling closer. 

“Come on, Mom, five more minutes?” he cracked, smiling his charming smile up at Tiger. 

Tiger rolled his eyes, but settled back, and made a big show of setting the timer on his wristwatch. 

“You know, Grayson,” Tiger said after a minute or two, more at ease now, and determined to replevy some of his composure beyond one weak snark. 

Dick looked up at him. 

“What in the hell are you carrying _personal lubricant_ around in your utility belt for?” 

Grayson’s face split into its customary grin, a devilish humor in his blue eyes. 

“Y’know, it’s kind of a funny story, actually…” 

Tiger groaned. 


End file.
